Big cats roaming in the north east



GingerNick said:
or any panther/puma turds

or tracks


or carcasses from their kills

or in this day an age of everybody having a camera in their pocket...an actual picture
Click to expand...

They have been found.

About 10 years ago between Hett and Tudhoe I was walking our dog and found the remains of a deer in a farmers field not too far from the road.

I still have the pictures of it on from my phone. Its front end was pretty much untouched other than puncture wounds to its neck. It’s back end had been eaten completely, in a way I could only describe as having been hollowed out.

I sent pictures to two group that were into this kind of thing and what followed was a bit like the People’s Front of Judea scene from Life of Brian. They did however both agree that it looked very much like a big cat kill.

If indeed that’s what it was, there’s zero chance of me being the only person to find something like that.
 
Dun Scathach said:
They have been found.

About 10 years ago between Hett and Tudhoe I was walking our dog and found the remains of a deer in a farmers field not too far from the road.

I still have the pictures of it on from my phone. Its front end was pretty much untouched other than puncture wounds to its neck. It’s back end had been eaten completely, in a way I could only describe as having been hollowed out.

I sent pictures to two group that were into this kind of thing and what followed was a bit like the People’s Front of Judea scene from Life of Brian. They did however both agree that it looked very much like a big cat kill.

If indeed that’s what it was, there’s zero chance of me being the only person to find something like that.
Click to expand...
A single big cat would typically go for the soft internal organs (heart, liver, kidneys etc) ahead of the carcass meat, so that sounds like it could fit the pattern of a big cat kill.
 
Flared Hicks said:
A single big cat would typically go for the soft internal organs (heart, liver, kidneys etc) ahead of the carcass meat, so that sounds like it could fit the pattern of a big cat kill.
Click to expand...

That was the conclusion they both came to. One of them came from Gloucestershire the same day to get a better look so they took it very seriously.

DEFRA on the other hand were less interested and after maybe a month I got an email saying that they thought it was killed by some kind of hybrid hunting dog that poachers may have been using in the area.

The deer was a decent size I should add too. Big enough to have antlers.
 
Dun Scathach said:
That was the conclusion they both came to. One of them came from Gloucestershire the same day to get a better look so they took it very seriously.

DEFRA on the other hand were less interested and after maybe a month I got an email saying that they thought it was killed by some kind of hybrid hunting dog that poachers may have been using in the area.

The deer was a decent size I should add too. Big enough to have antlers.
Click to expand...
The puncture wounds to the neck are also consistent as the big cats tend to kill their prey by clamping down on the windpipe and suffocating it.
 
Dun Scathach said:
They have been found.

About 10 years ago between Hett and Tudhoe I was walking our dog and found the remains of a deer in a farmers field not too far from the road.

I still have the pictures of it on from my phone. Its front end was pretty much untouched other than puncture wounds to its neck. It’s back end had been eaten completely, in a way I could only describe as having been hollowed out.

I sent pictures to two group that were into this kind of thing and what followed was a bit like the People’s Front of Judea scene from Life of Brian. They did however both agree that it looked very much like a big cat kill.

If indeed that’s what it was, there’s zero chance of me being the only person to find something like that.
Click to expand...
I’d have shit my pants
 
Dun Scathach said:
They have been found.

About 10 years ago between Hett and Tudhoe I was walking our dog and found the remains of a deer in a farmers field not too far from the road.

I still have the pictures of it on from my phone. Its front end was pretty much untouched other than puncture wounds to its neck. It’s back end had been eaten completely, in a way I could only describe as having been hollowed out.

I sent pictures to two group that were into this kind of thing and what followed was a bit like the People’s Front of Judea scene from Life of Brian. They did however both agree that it looked very much like a big cat kill.

If indeed that’s what it was, there’s zero chance of me being the only person to find something like that.
Click to expand...

Links up with stories we heard as a kid from dog walkers. Were sightings between ferryhill and cornforth. Hett and tudhoe would no doubt be in the same range as this for a big cat
 
Duracel Funny said:
I’d have shit my pants
Click to expand...

I grew up in Peterlee man. That cat should have been scared of me :cool:

Thankfully it was in broad daylight and not too far from the road. It was a small clearing in a field of crops at about chest height so getting back out of the field was a bit heart in mouth. Not sure in truth, what I would have done had I came face to face with whatever did it.

One other detail was that the immediate area around it was very clean, no blood trails or mess anywhere. Also, there was a very small pool of blood in the low point of the rib cage so whatever had done it, I’d guess it hadn’t been too long ago as the blood there hadn’t thickened.

Probably worse now thinking about it than I was at the time.
 
GingerNick said:
or any panther/puma turds

or tracks


or carcasses from their kills

or in this day an age of everybody having a camera in their pocket...an actual picture
Click to expand...

Getting a decent picture of any wildlife is difficult with a mobile phone camera. With any small lens even stuff that seems big and not that far away can look tiny on the screen. I did a safari in the early days of home consumer digital and got some really crap pictures of good animal sightings.

Usually reports of big cats are seen at night. Mobile phone cameras are generally poor in low light.

If someone did get a good picture with a mobile camera, I'd be suspicious of fakery.
 
DaveH said:
They say big, but don’t say how big.

That blurry picture is not a panther. Panthers have more rounded tips to their ears, which are set more to the side. That is a domestic cat.
Click to expand...
True and he’s actually sitting next to me watching motd2 reet now.
 
I was escorted home one night by the police who said there was a cougar spotted roaming about, we’d been to my sister’s friends house and decided to walk home, it was less than a mile. This was Alberta though, not Peterlee.
 
We have Scottish Wildcats in these parts - very rare but when you see one you know you've seen one - they are like double size tabby cats

Call it Tiddles and it will rip your throat out ;)
 

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